PD:Will this thread merge with Grixis Shadow or will there be a separate thread?.
It's kind of the same line as when Grixis Control and Grixis Delver were almost the same deck but swapped 4 Delvers for 4 AV. If the deck is running a Delver list, but just swapping 4 other creature threats for DS, it's a delver list. If it's running Wraith and Thoughtseize and no Delvers, it's a Shadow list. I feel they are different enough to warrant separate threads, but the line is a lot blurrier when somewhere in between.
Edit: I also think that without Goyf and Traverse, Grixis Shadow is just strictly worse than Jund Shadow. Having Delver gives us an extra, evasive, and annoying threat that is cheap and synergistic with the rest of our deck, and adding Shadow to that Delver shell might be better than stuff like Young Pyromancer, Vendilion Clique, and one of the Delve creatures.
I NEVER side out Tasigur or Angler against Burn. The x/5 butt blocks literally everything they have, neither trigger Eidolon, and they need to use a minimum of two cards to kill. Even if it never attacks, it's an excellent insurance policy against the ground game and drawing their burn away from your face to get rid of it.
In my old list, I would side in 3 Countersquall, 1 Dispel, 1 Collective Brutality.
Side out 3 Remand, 1 Kolaghan's Command, 1 Serum Visions.
Hey all I have a SB question. I know answers about SB are meta dependent but I'll give y'all some background. At my two local shops I've been getting stomped by tron as usual, however now there is an eldrazi tron list at both shops, and I've never felt so outmatched in magic. Rather than having variety in my SB for any of the matchups I may face, I'm thinking of stacking it with the focus on eldrazi and burn. I'm thinking about running 4 of ceremonious rejection, 2 molten rain, shattering spree, and maybe damnation for the eldrazi match up. Has anyone ever approached anything like this situation? I don't think I can beat eldrazi tron without drawing at least 3 SB cards.
Welcome to the realization of why this deck will never be tier 1!
I don't mean to sound like a downer, but Eldrazi and Tron are probably our worst of the worst matchups. They're extremely difficult and mostly miserable to play, even if we DO draw all our sideboard cards. Don't let it get under your skin, just know that it's a massive uphill battle against these decks. Blood Moon is probably our best option against both, unless we want to run the Fulminator Mage/Surgical Extraction set, but none of those are effective without early/consistent pressure. Ceremonious Rejection is bad because Eldrazi plays Cavern of Souls and will just laugh at that card. Timely Countersquall and early Mana Leaks on Tron's setup pieces can help (like counter their sylvan scrying or ancient stirrings). I can say one of my best matches against Tron involved an early Surgical Extraction targeting Ancient Stirrings and then smashing with Tasigur while he spun his wheels looking for lands and threats. But in the end, it's like a 30/70 matchup. It's very likely you will lose, so if it does happen, just try not to let it tilt you for the next round.
I'm not that happy with a deck that seems control but it's just worse. When I've sided my AVs in I often played better than in g1. I think that YP is needed in Delver, that's why I'm gonna play it in this FNM. The only thing I'm not sure about is my last SB SLOT. I don't know if I wanna go hard on Tron hate (currently running 2 Moon, 1 FMage and 2 Negates) or taking another card good against midrange, specially Abzan (right now I have 3 AV, 1 Staticaster, 1 EE, 1 Anger, 2 Negates). I was thinking about one between Keranos, Jace AoT and Olivia, with a slight preference for the first and the latter one. What do you guys think? I'm on 20 lands, so reaching 5 isn't a problem most of the times.
What do you guys think about him going back down to 19 lands? I do agree that sometimes I get flooded a lot.
I tried to tackle it by making my 20th land be Creeping Tar Pit. Then if I flood, I can at least crash in for 3 unblockable. I'm not committed to it, but it has been OK so far.
By the average time you can actually cast Crumble, it's way past being relevant. Being a sorcery speed 4 drop in a deck that MIGHT hit 4 lands by turn 5 or 6 sounds awful.
Edit: after watching, I like many of the other changes he has made, especially P&K in the board. I still greatly disagree with Crumble, but maybe I'll try it out again...
Yeah young pyro is still great without probe. We spam spells like nobody's business so one fewer spell to spam is really not a big deal. He still rolls over control and midrange decks if he sticks around for a turn or two.
After being on the receiving end of Fatal Push 3 rounds in a row, I can see why people want to cut Pyros. If I don't play my janky Jeskai Aggro build, I'll give a Pyro-less Delver build a try again.
Countersquall is strictly better than Negate in this deck. There is almost zero opportunity cost to cast because you always want UB anyway.
I think big 4 drops are not where this deck wants to be, so Damnation, Olivia, Jace AoT; they seem a bit much. Even Cryptic Command is pushing it, but at least Cryptic flips Delver. The deck really struggles to hit 4 lands on turn 4, and that's usually when you want to be casting stuff like Damnation. Engineered Explosives deal with many relevant threats at any stage of the game and Anger of the Gods's exile clause can be very relevant as well.
I absolutely cannot stand Painful Truths. I think tapping out 3 mana on my own turn at sorcery speed AND losing 3 life is not where I want to be either. That cost means I may or may not be able to cast anything relevant that I draw, am less likely to have mana available to deal with whatever my opponent does for a turn, and deals me a lot of damage in a deck that deals a lot of damage to itself through its manabase already. If I'm playing for a grindy game, I want Ancestral Vision all day. The only reason, IMO, to play Painful Truths is budget considerations ($50 vs $0.50 is not a small difference and totally understandable).
While I think Young Pyromancer is absolutely essential to an aggressive Delver build, it may not be ideal for a controlling/reactive build. Same goes for Remand. It's great if you're presenting a good clock and attacking with an early Tasigur or flipped Delver, but it's pretty awful otherwise. Drawing a card is great, but buying a turn doesn't do anything if you aren't taking advantage of that turn.
Spellskite can be good defensively against pump decks or hexproof aura decks, but it's not super relevant in protecting our own creatures. We have Kolaghan's Command and Snapcaster Mage to get back and re play whatever creature we need. I don't think it's necessary.
I don't like Electrolyze because I think the effect isn't worth 3 mana. In a slower, controlling build though, it's fine. I prefer Forked Bolt, but I'm also running a lower curve, fewer lands, and Young Pyromancer.
Sulfur Falls is fine in almost every scenario except if it's your only opening land. That's the only case in which Spirebluff Canal is better. Canal can cast a Turn 1 Delver, Falls cannot. But Canal also hurts 4 drops by coming in tapped as a 4th land (which probably aides in my dislike for 4 drops).
Bant Eldrazi is bad because just about everything they play par for par is better and more powerful than what we are doing, many of our kill spells do not effectively deal with their threats; all of which 2-for-1 us, and they run Cavern of Souls. They are favored in the long game and have ridiculous tools to dig for answers/threats/lands/etc. Tron Tron (GR/GW/GB) is really bad because many of their threats are incredibly difficult to deal with or fight through. We think that Karn, Ugin, and Ulamog are the problem, but it's even difficult to win through even a simple Wurmcoil Engine. Eldrazi Tron isn't as much of a problem because it feels less explosive than Bant Eldrazi and has a less threatening top-end compared to regular Tron. It's like the worst aspects of each deck smashed together.
What am i doing wrong i keep losing to any kind of tron/eldrazi
Those are really bad matchups that require either several dedicated sideboard slots or lots of variance luck to reliably win. There's not a whole lot Delver can do against these decks other than cross your fingers and hope for the best.
Baral does sound good, however it seems like grixis delver does have plenty of ways to take care of him so he shouldn't be too big of a problem, and I don't imagine him being that large of a meta game presence
I can tell you that I spent at least 6 kill spells to kill 3 separate Barals. Between 1 mana looting counters and Ojutai's Command-ing him back after countering a creature of mine, he is incredibly hard to kill unless they try to just blindly jam it turn 2.
What's your build though? At the height of the dredge/infect meta, grixis delver had to cut a lot of counterspells, going all the way down to 4 ocassionally. This new meta seems to have more traditional combo decks like ad Nauseam and goryos vengeance, so upping the number of counterspells seems good. 6-7?
I'm not satisfied with my build right now. Adding counters makes the deck weaker to other matchups and then suffers the same closing speed problems that Grixis Control has (but doesn't play main deck AV and Cryptics). Fatal Push also utterly wrecks this deck, which both Esper decks were running the full 4 with Snapcaster Mage. I'm going to step away from being super competitive for a while and just play something fun until I burn through the rest of my store credit on entry fees.
Anyone find any recent delver videos to watch? Last one I saw is CalebD I think..
Honestly, after watching his Jeskai list, I want to play that so much more than Grixis right now. It seems better suited for a fast game with good clock against uninteractive combo/Tron. Should have tried it out last night.
0-2 Ad Nauseam - Game 1, almost got there, but AN has lots of ways to not lose. Game 2, he mulliganed down to 4 to ensure a turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity. Was almost there with flipped Delvers until he slammed Dradonlord Dromoka. I couldn't even be upset at this, I was mostly shocked and impressed with the spice. Never seen that in AN before. Deck is still as miserable as ever.
2-0 Esper Gifts with Baral - Game 1, killing a turn 2 Baral was good, chipping in for damage was great, bolt snap bolt after getting hit for 9 off Iona (black) and Elesh Norn. Game 2 he stalled on lands and I had great draws.
2-1 Mardu Burn - Actually won Game 1, lost Game 2 (both at 2 life, he top decked better) and won very close game 3 (won at 2 life). Budget concerns allowed Mana Confluence to do a lot of work for me.
0-2 Another Esper Gifts - Resolved Baral is stupid good. Mana Leak, Remand, and Negate for 1 mana and free loot is pretty good.
Some takeaways: Ad Nauseam is still totally miserable. It's position in the meta feels better, and at least popular locally. Game doesn't feel completely unwinnable, but it feels nearly as bad as Tron. The Gifts deck feels like a free win without Baral and unwinnable with resolved Baral. Burn is not terrible, even without any specific, dedicated life gain. Damage done to himself was very valuable. Countersquall, Dispel, and Engineered Explosives all did good work.
I do not feel this is strong enough to play at SCG Regionals saturday because it has too many bad matchups against decks that are good right now. I'll probably be sitting out, saving my money, and just watch the next thing get banned out of Standard at the Pro Tour.
I've been really wanting to try Liliana, the Last Hope, but I just have such a hard time justifying the $35 price tag for such an OK-for-Modern card... Who knows, maybe she'll explode like LotV in time, but right now, her price is clearly dictated by Standard/Frontier.
I feel like Spell Pierce isn't awful, but it looks better out of the board than in the main. It's completely dead in creature matchups and grows increasingly worse as the game continues, even in relevant matchups. It shines in decks trying to play and protect early threats (like straight UR Delver). If I could find something I want to cut, I think Countersquall main deck is totally reasonable. It hits the same things as Pierce, but is never actually dead (in addition to helping with the damage plan).
I don't know if Blood Moon or Fulminator Mage are strictly better than each other, but I have found Blood Moon to be extremely effective in lots of games (especially Valakut and Eldrazi decks, which there are a lot of locally). Fulminator Mage rarely ever attacked when played (often came down immediately and destroyed land), so the value it has as a creature is minimal. It does work with K Command, but I feel like I would rather get back Young Pyromancer, or a Delve threat than Fulminator Mage. Blood Moon has the advantage or "set it and forget it," as long as I have at least 1 Island and 1 Swamp.
Unconventional decklist. Seems like Goryo's Vengeance is on the rise.
Outside of the Lily in the main-deck and the GDD in the side-board it looks fairly main-stream to me. What am I missing?
I don't dig the 4-1 Fatal Push-Terminate split, but different strokes, I guess.
Only 18 lands and 2 main deck Spell Pierce stick out most. Then little things like Murderous Cut instead of more Terminate (when already running 4 Push), 2/2 Angler/Tasigur instead of 1/3. Seems very different from Pyromancer builds, but still pretty off even by control build standards. Lots of little tweaks. Can't necessarily say I agree with them, but apparently he had success today.
It's kind of the same line as when Grixis Control and Grixis Delver were almost the same deck but swapped 4 Delvers for 4 AV. If the deck is running a Delver list, but just swapping 4 other creature threats for DS, it's a delver list. If it's running Wraith and Thoughtseize and no Delvers, it's a Shadow list. I feel they are different enough to warrant separate threads, but the line is a lot blurrier when somewhere in between.
Edit: I also think that without Goyf and Traverse, Grixis Shadow is just strictly worse than Jund Shadow. Having Delver gives us an extra, evasive, and annoying threat that is cheap and synergistic with the rest of our deck, and adding Shadow to that Delver shell might be better than stuff like Young Pyromancer, Vendilion Clique, and one of the Delve creatures.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
In my old list, I would side in 3 Countersquall, 1 Dispel, 1 Collective Brutality.
Side out 3 Remand, 1 Kolaghan's Command, 1 Serum Visions.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Welcome to the realization of why this deck will never be tier 1!
I don't mean to sound like a downer, but Eldrazi and Tron are probably our worst of the worst matchups. They're extremely difficult and mostly miserable to play, even if we DO draw all our sideboard cards. Don't let it get under your skin, just know that it's a massive uphill battle against these decks. Blood Moon is probably our best option against both, unless we want to run the Fulminator Mage/Surgical Extraction set, but none of those are effective without early/consistent pressure. Ceremonious Rejection is bad because Eldrazi plays Cavern of Souls and will just laugh at that card. Timely Countersquall and early Mana Leaks on Tron's setup pieces can help (like counter their sylvan scrying or ancient stirrings). I can say one of my best matches against Tron involved an early Surgical Extraction targeting Ancient Stirrings and then smashing with Tasigur while he spun his wheels looking for lands and threats. But in the end, it's like a 30/70 matchup. It's very likely you will lose, so if it does happen, just try not to let it tilt you for the next round.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Pia and Kiran Nalaar looked good in Kevin Jones' most recent video. Seems like it would be great with Kolaghan's Command.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I tried to tackle it by making my 20th land be Creeping Tar Pit. Then if I flood, I can at least crash in for 3 unblockable. I'm not committed to it, but it has been OK so far.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
By the average time you can actually cast Crumble, it's way past being relevant. Being a sorcery speed 4 drop in a deck that MIGHT hit 4 lands by turn 5 or 6 sounds awful.
Edit: after watching, I like many of the other changes he has made, especially P&K in the board. I still greatly disagree with Crumble, but maybe I'll try it out again...
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
After being on the receiving end of Fatal Push 3 rounds in a row, I can see why people want to cut Pyros. If I don't play my janky Jeskai Aggro build, I'll give a Pyro-less Delver build a try again.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I think big 4 drops are not where this deck wants to be, so Damnation, Olivia, Jace AoT; they seem a bit much. Even Cryptic Command is pushing it, but at least Cryptic flips Delver. The deck really struggles to hit 4 lands on turn 4, and that's usually when you want to be casting stuff like Damnation. Engineered Explosives deal with many relevant threats at any stage of the game and Anger of the Gods's exile clause can be very relevant as well.
Murderous Cut and Go For the Throat could easily be swapped for Fatal Push, as long as you don't drop too many Terminates.
I absolutely cannot stand Painful Truths. I think tapping out 3 mana on my own turn at sorcery speed AND losing 3 life is not where I want to be either. That cost means I may or may not be able to cast anything relevant that I draw, am less likely to have mana available to deal with whatever my opponent does for a turn, and deals me a lot of damage in a deck that deals a lot of damage to itself through its manabase already. If I'm playing for a grindy game, I want Ancestral Vision all day. The only reason, IMO, to play Painful Truths is budget considerations ($50 vs $0.50 is not a small difference and totally understandable).
While I think Young Pyromancer is absolutely essential to an aggressive Delver build, it may not be ideal for a controlling/reactive build. Same goes for Remand. It's great if you're presenting a good clock and attacking with an early Tasigur or flipped Delver, but it's pretty awful otherwise. Drawing a card is great, but buying a turn doesn't do anything if you aren't taking advantage of that turn.
Spellskite can be good defensively against pump decks or hexproof aura decks, but it's not super relevant in protecting our own creatures. We have Kolaghan's Command and Snapcaster Mage to get back and re play whatever creature we need. I don't think it's necessary.
I don't like Electrolyze because I think the effect isn't worth 3 mana. In a slower, controlling build though, it's fine. I prefer Forked Bolt, but I'm also running a lower curve, fewer lands, and Young Pyromancer.
Sulfur Falls is fine in almost every scenario except if it's your only opening land. That's the only case in which Spirebluff Canal is better. Canal can cast a Turn 1 Delver, Falls cannot. But Canal also hurts 4 drops by coming in tapped as a 4th land (which probably aides in my dislike for 4 drops).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Those are really bad matchups that require either several dedicated sideboard slots or lots of variance luck to reliably win. There's not a whole lot Delver can do against these decks other than cross your fingers and hope for the best.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I can tell you that I spent at least 6 kill spells to kill 3 separate Barals. Between 1 mana looting counters and Ojutai's Command-ing him back after countering a creature of mine, he is incredibly hard to kill unless they try to just blindly jam it turn 2.
I'm not satisfied with my build right now. Adding counters makes the deck weaker to other matchups and then suffers the same closing speed problems that Grixis Control has (but doesn't play main deck AV and Cryptics). Fatal Push also utterly wrecks this deck, which both Esper decks were running the full 4 with Snapcaster Mage. I'm going to step away from being super competitive for a while and just play something fun until I burn through the rest of my store credit on entry fees.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Honestly, after watching his Jeskai list, I want to play that so much more than Grixis right now. It seems better suited for a fast game with good clock against uninteractive combo/Tron. Should have tried it out last night.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
0-2 Ad Nauseam - Game 1, almost got there, but AN has lots of ways to not lose. Game 2, he mulliganed down to 4 to ensure a turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity. Was almost there with flipped Delvers until he slammed Dradonlord Dromoka. I couldn't even be upset at this, I was mostly shocked and impressed with the spice. Never seen that in AN before. Deck is still as miserable as ever.
2-0 Esper Gifts with Baral - Game 1, killing a turn 2 Baral was good, chipping in for damage was great, bolt snap bolt after getting hit for 9 off Iona (black) and Elesh Norn. Game 2 he stalled on lands and I had great draws.
2-1 Mardu Burn - Actually won Game 1, lost Game 2 (both at 2 life, he top decked better) and won very close game 3 (won at 2 life). Budget concerns allowed Mana Confluence to do a lot of work for me.
0-2 Another Esper Gifts - Resolved Baral is stupid good. Mana Leak, Remand, and Negate for 1 mana and free loot is pretty good.
Some takeaways: Ad Nauseam is still totally miserable. It's position in the meta feels better, and at least popular locally. Game doesn't feel completely unwinnable, but it feels nearly as bad as Tron. The Gifts deck feels like a free win without Baral and unwinnable with resolved Baral. Burn is not terrible, even without any specific, dedicated life gain. Damage done to himself was very valuable. Countersquall, Dispel, and Engineered Explosives all did good work.
I do not feel this is strong enough to play at SCG Regionals saturday because it has too many bad matchups against decks that are good right now. I'll probably be sitting out, saving my money, and just watch the next thing get banned out of Standard at the Pro Tour.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I feel like Spell Pierce isn't awful, but it looks better out of the board than in the main. It's completely dead in creature matchups and grows increasingly worse as the game continues, even in relevant matchups. It shines in decks trying to play and protect early threats (like straight UR Delver). If I could find something I want to cut, I think Countersquall main deck is totally reasonable. It hits the same things as Pierce, but is never actually dead (in addition to helping with the damage plan).
I don't know if Blood Moon or Fulminator Mage are strictly better than each other, but I have found Blood Moon to be extremely effective in lots of games (especially Valakut and Eldrazi decks, which there are a lot of locally). Fulminator Mage rarely ever attacked when played (often came down immediately and destroyed land), so the value it has as a creature is minimal. It does work with K Command, but I feel like I would rather get back Young Pyromancer, or a Delve threat than Fulminator Mage. Blood Moon has the advantage or "set it and forget it," as long as I have at least 1 Island and 1 Swamp.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Only 18 lands and 2 main deck Spell Pierce stick out most. Then little things like Murderous Cut instead of more Terminate (when already running 4 Push), 2/2 Angler/Tasigur instead of 1/3. Seems very different from Pyromancer builds, but still pretty off even by control build standards. Lots of little tweaks. Can't necessarily say I agree with them, but apparently he had success today.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate